--cached
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree,
search blobs registered in the index file.
--no-index
Search files in the current directory that is not managed by
Git.
--untracked
In addition to searching in the tracked files in the working
tree, search also in untracked files.
--no-exclude-standard
Also search in ignored files by not honoring the .gitignore
mechanism. Only useful with --untracked.
--exclude-standard
Do not pay attention to ignored files specified via the
.gitignore mechanism. Only useful when searching files in the
current directory with --no-index.
--recurse-submodules
Recursively search in each submodule that is active and
checked out in the repository. When used in combination with
the <tree> option the prefix of all submodule output will be
the name of the parent project's <tree> object. This option
has no effect if --no-index is given.
-a, --text
Process binary files as if they were text.
--textconv
Honor textconv filter settings.
--no-textconv
Do not honor textconv filter settings. This is the default.
-i, --ignore-case
Ignore case differences between the patterns and the files.
-I
Don't match the pattern in binary files.
--max-depth <depth>
For each <pathspec> given on command line, descend at most
<depth> levels of directories. A value of -1 means no limit.
This option is ignored if <pathspec> contains active
wildcards. In other words if "a*" matches a directory named
"a*", "*" is matched literally so --max-depth is still
effective.
-r, --recursive
Same as --max-depth=-1; this is the default.
--no-recursive
Same as --max-depth=0.
-w, --word-regexp
Match the pattern only at word boundary (either begin at the
beginning of a line, or preceded by a non-word character; end
at the end of a line or followed by a non-word character).
-v, --invert-match
Select non-matching lines.
-h, -H
By default, the command shows the filename for each match.
-h option is used to suppress this output. -H is there for
completeness and does not do anything except it overrides -h
given earlier on the command line.
--full-name
When run from a subdirectory, the command usually outputs
paths relative to the current directory. This option forces
paths to be output relative to the project top directory.
-E, --extended-regexp, -G, --basic-regexp
Use POSIX extended/basic regexp for patterns. Default is to
use basic regexp.
-P, --perl-regexp
Use Perl-compatible regular expressions for patterns.
Support for these types of regular expressions is an optional
compile-time dependency. If Git wasn't compiled with support
for them providing this option will cause it to die.
-F, --fixed-strings
Use fixed strings for patterns (don't interpret pattern as a
regex).
-n, --line-number
Prefix the line number to matching lines.
--column
Prefix the 1-indexed byte-offset of the first match from the
start of the matching line.
-l, --files-with-matches, --name-only, -L, --files-without-match
Instead of showing every matched line, show only the names of
files that contain (or do not contain) matches. For better
compatibility with git diff, --name-only is a synonym for
--files-with-matches.
-O[<pager>], --open-files-in-pager[=<pager>]
Open the matching files in the pager (not the output of
grep). If the pager happens to be "less" or "vi", and the
user specified only one pattern, the first file is positioned
at the first match automatically. The pager argument is
optional; if specified, it must be stuck to the option
without a space. If pager is unspecified, the default pager
will be used (see core.pager in git-config(1)).
-z, --null
Use \0 as the delimiter for pathnames in the output, and
print them verbatim. Without this option, pathnames with
"unusual" characters are quoted as explained for the
configuration variable core.quotePath (see git-config(1)).
-o, --only-matching
Print only the matched (non-empty) parts of a matching line,
with each such part on a separate output line.
-c, --count
Instead of showing every matched line, show the number of
lines that match.
--color[=<when>]
Show colored matches. The value must be always (the default),
never, or auto.
--no-color
Turn off match highlighting, even when the configuration file
gives the default to color output. Same as --color=never.
--break
Print an empty line between matches from different files.
--heading
Show the filename above the matches in that file instead of
at the start of each shown line.
-p, --show-function
Show the preceding line that contains the function name of
the match, unless the matching line is a function name
itself. The name is determined in the same way as git diff
works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).
-<num>, -C <num>, --context <num>
Show <num> leading and trailing lines, and place a line
containing -- between contiguous groups of matches.
-A <num>, --after-context <num>
Show <num> trailing lines, and place a line containing --
between contiguous groups of matches.
-B <num>, --before-context <num>
Show <num> leading lines, and place a line containing --
between contiguous groups of matches.
-W, --function-context
Show the surrounding text from the previous line containing a
function name up to the one before the next function name,
effectively showing the whole function in which the match was
found. The function names are determined in the same way as
git diff works out patch hunk headers (see Defining a custom
hunk-header in gitattributes(5)).
--threads <num>
Number of grep worker threads to use. See grep.threads in
CONFIGURATION for more information.
-f <file>
Read patterns from <file>, one per line.
Passing the pattern via <file> allows for providing a search
pattern containing a \0.
Not all pattern types support patterns containing \0. Git
will error out if a given pattern type can't support such a
pattern. The --perl-regexp pattern type when compiled against
the PCRE v2 backend has the widest support for these types of
patterns.
In versions of Git before 2.23.0 patterns containing \0 would
be silently considered fixed. This was never documented,
there were also odd and undocumented interactions between
e.g. non-ASCII patterns containing \0 and --ignore-case.
In future versions we may learn to support patterns
containing \0 for more search backends, until then we'll die
when the pattern type in question doesn't support them.
-e
The next parameter is the pattern. This option has to be used
for patterns starting with - and should be used in scripts
passing user input to grep. Multiple patterns are combined by
or.
--and, --or, --not, ( ... )
Specify how multiple patterns are combined using Boolean
expressions. --or is the default operator. --and has higher
precedence than --or. -e has to be used for all patterns.
--all-match
When giving multiple pattern expressions combined with --or,
this flag is specified to limit the match to files that have
lines to match all of them.
-q, --quiet
Do not output matched lines; instead, exit with status 0 when
there is a match and with non-zero status when there isn't.
<tree>...
Instead of searching tracked files in the working tree,
search blobs in the given trees.
--
Signals the end of options; the rest of the parameters are
<pathspec> limiters.
<pathspec>...
If given, limit the search to paths matching at least one
pattern. Both leading paths match and glob(7) patterns are
supported.
For more details about the <pathspec> syntax, see the
pathspec entry in gitglossary(7).
